Argument # 30:    The James Randi million dollar psychic challenge argument.

 

In the original version of this article back in 2001, I decided not to address this argument because I didn’t like to create whole arguments against specific individuals.  However, at this point the infamous James Randi and his supporters have made it practically unavoidable as paranormal debunkers now commonly use Randi’s psychic challenge as proof that there are no genuine paranormal or psychic abilities.  They argue that if any psychic or paranormalist is for real, then they would apply and win Randi’s million dollar psychic challenge.  Refusal to do so, they claim, is an inadvertent admission of fraud, so the fact that it has been unwon all these years demonstrates that there are no real psychics. 

 

Randi is now so deeply publicly involved in debunking parapsychology in the media, that to ignore him would be tantamount to ignoring Darth Vader in Star Wars.  Therefore, in this new edition of my article, I’ve decided to add this new argument that is one of the most often mentioned arguments by organized skeptics. 

 

First though, for those of you who don’t know, James Randi (www.randi.org) is a famous paranormal debunker who founded the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF).  Skilled and versed in the art of stage magic, Mr. Randi claims to be better able to detect fraud and trickery from psychics and mediums better than scientists can.  He gives speeches attempting to “educate” (or brainwash rather, in my view) the public about psychics and paranormal phenomena, which he claims is all deception or self-delusion.  He has written books such as An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural and Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions, made a PBS documentary called “Secrets of the Psychics”, caused damage to the reputation of psychics and healers such as Israeli-born spoon bender Uri Geller (www.urigeller.com), been on CNN’s Larry King Live a few times to debate psychic Sylvia Browne (www.sylviabrowne.com) (you can read the transcript of the debate at www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0312/05/lkl.00.html), etc.  For more general info on Randi, see Wikipedia’s entry of him at: www.wikipedia.org

 

Randi’s critics claim is mostly a publicity stunt for his career due to the fact that 1) Randi is extremely selective in who he tests, preferring to only test famous names to boost his own career, and that 2) there are many applicants who received no response after applying.  Since a lot has already been written about this, I will provide you with some links I know of to them.

 

·           Dr. Victor Zammit, a lawyer who presents the case for the afterlife, has written a critique expose about the Randi Challenge at:  http://www.victorzammit.com/skeptics/reward.html

 

·            Richard Milton of Alternative Science (www.alternativescience.com) also wrote an analysis of the psychic challenge, questioning its validity, at:  http://www.alternativescience.com/james-randi.htm.  He also described an example of what happened to an applicant who was refused at:  http://www.alternativescience.com/randi_retreats.htm.

 

·           My long time friend and colleague Michael Goodspeed (www.trueskeptic.com) recently also wrote a great article detailing the hypocrisy of Randi and his challenge, which you can read at:  http://www.rense.com/general50/james.htm.

 

·            Psychic Challenge An article challenging James Randi to live up to his repeated assertion that if adequate evidence of a paranormal reality could be demonstrated to him, he would be happy to acknowledge it and pay the one million dollar prize to the claimant.  Includes accounts of Randi’s shortcomings and mistakes. (You can read Randi’s response to it at:  http://www.randi.org/jr/091903.html)

 

·           Flim-Flam Flummery: A Skeptical Look at James Randi  An comprehensive article by Michael Prescott which investigates, analyzes and exposes many errors and mistakes Randi made in his book Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions.  Includes a response by Randi, followed by Prescott’s rebuttal and detailed analysis of many disputed issues.

 

·            The Ultimate Psychic Challenge - A Challenge to James Randi  Montague Keen’s challenge to Mr. Randi to live up to his repeated assertion a Discovery Channel program that if only adequate evidence of the paranormal could be demonstrated to him, he would be happy to acknowledge it - and give the claimant the $1million prize he so publicly and consistently pledges. 

 

·           Discussion on Jeff Rense.  Michael Roll discusses radio shows where Randi was defeated and shamed in debate against qualified scientists, which didn’t reach the public, possibly due to Randi’s doing.

 

·           Million Dollar Challenge Winner Proclaims James Randi Fraud  An incident in Indonesia where Randi’s representative with “chi gong” abilities of a Yellow Bamboo practitioner during a public demonstration.

 

·           Randi runs away  An article critiquing Randi and his challenge on the remote viewer website.

 

A cursory look at Randi’s articles on his website www.randi.org will reveal to any objective observer that although this man is very good at playing intellectual gymnastics in his commentaries, his beliefs and judgments clearly fit the definition of behaviors of a pseudo-skeptic described at the beginning of this article, rather than that of the true skeptic.  His arguments and views are rather weak, narrow, oversimplistic, and demonstrates a hasty jump to conclusions, so much so that even if I were an average person with no knowledge of the paranormal, I would not find him convincing.

 

In addition, Randi seems to have a tendency to distort facts for his purposes.  For instance, Harold Puthoff, a researcher at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) which is famous for conducting experiments on remote viewing and Uri Geller’s psychic abilities, told me in an email:

 

“<< All the skeptics I've debated said that the SRI tests were totally discredited and debunked already.  Is this true?  >>

 

Not true at all.  They just quote Randi and his pronouncements, e.g., in his book Flim Flam.  In Flim Flam, he gives something like 28 debunking points, if my memory serves me correctly.  I had the opportunity to confront Randi at a Parapsychology Association conference with proof in hand, and in tape-recorded interaction he admitted he was wrong on all the points.  He even said he would correct them for the upcoming paperback being published by the CSICOP group.  (He did not.)

 

In case one thinks that it was just a case of our opinions vs. his opinions, we chose for the list of incorrect points only those that could be independently verified.  Examples: He said that in our Nature paper we verified Geller's metal-bending.  Go to the paper, and you see that we said we were not able to obtain evidence for this.  He said that a film of the Geller experiment made at SRI by famed photographer Zev Pressman was not made by him, but by us and we just put his name on it.  We showed up with an affidavit by Pressman saying that indeed he did make the film.  Etc., etc.

 

Hal Puthoff”

 

Also, in his article CSICOP and the Skeptics: An Overview George Hansen cites in his footnotes regarding Randi:

 

“25 Randi’s antics should have come as no surprise to members of CSICOP because he has engaged in similar behavior in relation to psi research. Krippner (1977), Rao (1984), Targ and Puthoff (1977, pp. 182-186), and Tart (1982b) have all documented glaring errors of Randi. Dennis Stillings has demonstrated that “Randi is capable of gross distortion of facts” (Truzzi, 1987, p. 89). Randi has been quoted as saying, “I always have an out” with regard to his $10,000 challenge (Rawlins, 1981, p. 89). Puthoff and Targ (1977) documented a number of mistakes. In a published, handwritten, signed letter, Randi replied offering $1,000 if any claimed error could be demonstrated (see Fuller, 1979). Fuller proved Randi wrong. In a rejoinder to Puthoff and Targ (1977), Randi reversed himself (for a clear example, see point number 15 in Randi, 1982, p. 223). Randi should have paid the $1,000, but he never did.”

 

In response to Mr. Randi’s million dollar psychic challenge charade, Dr. Zammit has issued a million dollar counter-challenge to skeptics to disprove the afterlife evidence detailed in his book A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife.  You can read the details of this challenge at:  http://www.victorzammit.com/skeptics/challenge.html

 

In any case, I would say in conclusion that regardless of whether Randi’s psychic challenge is legit, I do not believe the fact that it is officially unwon to constitute proof that paranormal and psychic phenomena don’t exist, as some debunkers claim.  Simply put, there are a variety of reasons why it would still be unwon, ranging from Randi’s own agenda, to the simple spiritual rule that psychic abilities used for selfish motives or profit disconnect one from the higher source, higher self, God, or cosmic consciousness.  In light of that, if you also pit the argument of the unwon challenge against the overwhelming anecdotal (majority population) and scientific evidence for psychic phenomena, it pales by comparison.  One unwon public challenge by a debunking organization does NOT invalidate the countless millions of paranormal experiences throughout world history, nor does it refute the years of replicable psi research done by Ganzfeld or PEAR experiments, among others.

 

Finally, in regard to CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) www.csicop.org, one revealing thing needs to be said.  Former CSICOP staff member Dennis Rawlins resigned after finding hard evidence of CSICOP intentionally suppressing its own findings which supported astrology (known as the "file drawer effect") during one of their initial investigations of Michel Gauquelin’s statistical research, thus proving the organization's true agenda was simply to discredit/debunk in any way possible rather than to find the truth, in order to appease its subscribers.  You can read Rawlins' report “sTARBABY” at http://cura.free.fr/xv/14starbb.html.  CSICOP has maintained of course, that it was all just a big misunderstanding.  But what else do you expect them to say?  Mr. Rawlins’ findings after all, seem to be very sincere and unambiguous.

 

Also, for an in-depth analysis of CSICOP, see this article:  http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/CSICOPoverview.htm

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